Remembering The Old Songs:

ROCK ABOUT MY SARO JANE

by Lyle Lofgren

(Originally published: Inside Bluegrass, May, 2010)

In the March issue, I wrote about Hold That Woodpile Down,
a steamboat roustabout song. Here's another steamboat song that
would have been lost were it not for Uncle Dave Macon. This one
(Vocalion 5152, reissued on Uncle Dave Macon Classic Sides,
1924-1938, JSP CD 7729) was recorded by Uncle Dave on the
same day in 1927 as Woodpile, with the same Fruit Jar
Drinker sidemen: Sam & Kirk McGee and Mazy Todd. I assume
Macon also learned it from traveling entertainers when he was
young.

Here's some speculation about what a couple of the terms mean:
"rock," used in the sense of rhythmic movement (with sexual
connotations), has a long history of usage in ebonics, dating at
least to the middle of the 19th century. It's probably a good
assumption that Saro Jane is a person, not a boat.

The reference to "hole in the wall" in verse #3 may be about
Hole-In-The-Wall Plantation, which was a large cotton plantation a
short distance upriver from Natchez. There was once a river
landing there of the same name, and Mark Twain mentions it in Life
on the Mississippi (chapter 8) as an area where depth
measurements were important, so perhaps it means that the boat ran
aground there. That interpretation would be consistent with the
misfortunes mentioned in the verse #2, where the experienced
captain is no longer around to pilot the boat.

I found no reference to a steamboat named MacMillan*,
but the last verse dates the song to the American Civil War, and
indicates that the narrator plans to (or already has) run off to
join the Union side in the battle. Both sides in that conflict
converted freight and passenger steamboats into gunships in the
hard-fought battle for control of the Mississippi River.

Whatever the meaning, it's fun to sing. There are very few
traditional songs that have both a refrain and a chorus, as well
as a minor chord. You'll have to listen to the original to figure
out how to do Uncle Dave's complex 3-finger banjo picking — it's
way beyond me.

Complete Lyrics: 1. I've got a wife and five little chillun,
Believe I'll take a trip on the big MacMillan,Refrain:
Oh Saro Jane!
Oh, there's nothing to do but to set down and sing
Oh rock about my Saro Jane.Chorus:
Oh, rock about my Saro Jane,
Oh, rock about my Saro Jane,
Oh, there's nothing to do but to set down and sing,
And rock about my Saro Jane.

* Editor's addendum (by Bob Waltz):
Lyle and I talked a bit about what "MacMillan" might be. I thought
it might be a river rather than a boat, but that is little help;
there is no major river named MacMillan in the United States. Nor
was there a Civil War battle officially named for one of the
various small towns named MacMillan or anything like it
(information from Frederick Phisterer's Statistical Record of
the Armies of the United States). There were four battles in
the vicinity of McMinnville, Tennessee, but McMinnville is in the
eastern part of the state; there were no river battles in that
area.

My conjecture, if Uncle Dave remembered the name correctly
(never a good bet with him) is that the reference is not to a boat
or river but to the singer's commander. James Winning McMillan
(1825-1903) was a Mexican War veteran who joined the army as an
Indiana colonel. He was promoted Brigadier as of November, 1862.
He is a good fit because he commanded a brigade (and sometimes a
division) in the Red River campaign of 1864. This was rather a
disaster, with riverboats trapped up the Red by low water. The
Union army had to build and empty dams to get the boats out -- and
there were pelenty of soldiers on the boats trying to defend them
from Confederates. I emphasize that this is only speculation.

[Note added 12/21/2010: I received an e-mail from Les Caraher with the
following information, which seems to me a prime candidate for the
Big MacMillan.]:

I read your article on Uncle Dave Macon's Rock About My
Saro Jane. Your speculation about the source of the phrase
the big MacMillan intrigued me. So, I did a little bit of
research on the internet and came up with an alternative source
for the phrase. In the article you mentioned the questionable
assumption that Uncle Dave remembered phrases correctly and he
may have, but if the song is a civil war era song then a lot of
folks had to remember things accurately before Uncle Dave got
a-holed of it. So, here is my speculation.

It turns out there was a boat that plied the Mississippi all
during the civil war as a supply boat. It was called the MOSES
McLELLAN. It is not hard to imagine that name changing to
the big MacMillan is it?

[Note added 6/7/2013: More ideas about the Big
MacMillan: I received an e-mail from William Lewis with the
following information]:

Just wanted to add my thoughts on Uncle Dave’s Rock
About My Saro Jane and the origin of the McMillan
reference. I always thought McMillan refered to a boat. However,
I have never come across a steamship with that name (not to say
there wasn’t one). According to the Country Music Hall of Fame,
Uncle Dave said he had learned the song from black stevedores on
the Cumberland River in the l880s. In the mid-19th century, the
Cumberland River supported a large riverboat trade which reached
to the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. A portion of Monroe County,
KY can be reached from Tompkinsville only by crossing the
Cumberland River on a ferry (still in operation today), which
leads to the scenic Turkey Neck Bend area located at McMillan’s
Landing, which was at one time considered one of the
finest steamboat landings along the upper Cumberland River. It’s
my guess that this may have been the home dock (or port) of a
steamship named McMillan. I have no documentation to support
this but it seems very plausible.

Also, Monroe County strongly supported the Union during the
Civil War. There were over 800 men from Monroe County who joined
the Union army, compared to less than 30 joining the
Confederacy. These numbers seem to support the last verse.